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agentdagonet · 5 years

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Echoes, Ch. 29

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Fic Summary: Feet dangling off the edge of the bed, hands still resting on the earpieces of his glasses, Eggsy opened his eyes.

And promptly shut them again, screwing them shut like a child who had the distinct misfortune of biting into a raw lemon. Breathing harshly in his nose and out his mouth, trying to stave off whatever delusional panic had befallen him, Eggsy reopened his eyes.

‘Harry?’

Or: The Hologram Story Nobody Asked For

There had been a card left on his desk, with a mug of tea and a still warm scone with no agent in sight. There were plenty of agents who would do this, leave offerings of a kind to the man who’d kept it together in face of the bullshit, as Eggsy would say; but the card narrowed it down to four.

Percival could have left this. He hadn’t bothered to open the thing yet, but it was a sturdy cardstock with a simple and elegant edgework. That implied a level of class and sophistication that was easily present with Percival, and the personal touch was more in his field due to his being one of a handful of agents who had been with them through the Valentine disaster.

If Lancelot had done this, then she was looking for an upgrade to some portion of her still new feminine Kingsman collection. Between her requests for more easily concealed weaponry for sleek outfits and her more overt demands for more fashionable eyewear she was in his labs quite often.

Eggsy would have written something cheeky on the outside of the card, he couldn’t resist defacing anything elegant while in the safety of Kingsman. He didn’t dare to do so to anything in his and Harry’s house, but give him something vaguely disposable and there was sure to be a tag of some kind upon it.

Harry was the most likely culprit, based on how perfectly the tea was made and the way the scone was buttered, but he also had the least reason. Harry was the arsehole who would ping his glasses to check the time, ask the weather, or simply chat aimlessly because he was bored.

Giving in to curiosity, half the scone in his mouth, Merlin picked up the card and flicked it open. Apparently he was being summoned to a place he’d had every intention of never setting foot in again. At the base of the card was an unfamiliar signature, and looking down at the plate Merlin could see a bit of napkin, “have fun!” written in Harry’s unruly script only made worse by the material it was written on.

So, that afternoon Merlin delegated the mission feed to the Lake, took his specs and clipboard home, and found himself standing on Michelle Unwin’s doorstep.

‘You going to stand there for ages or knock like a real person, love?’ Michelle was stood at the cracked window, peering through and grinning through the blinds at him, and Merlin could feel his ears flush. Some things can be trained and some things could not- but he was confused beyond measure and uncertainty put him on edge. He was a planner, not the type of man to fly by the seat of his pants- his plans had plans, and every failsafe had a redundant one beneath it.

‘Are you implying that those who do not knock on doors are, somehow, fake people?’ Merlin lifted a brow, and he saw more than heard Michelle’s giggle as she left the window to let him in.

‘Or Vampires!’ Little Daisy Unwin popped from behind her mother, and Merlin couldn’t help but be charmed.

‘Vampires, you say? It’s definitely too late in the year for Vampires, lass.’ Merlin followed MIchelle to the table, setting down the requested biscuits before turning to crouch to Daisy’s level.

‘There’s always Vampires! But they can’t come in ‘less you say so!’ The girl seemed to take this as her exit, bounding out from the room and shutting an unseen door. Merlin chuckled as he stood, knees popping, and turned to find Michelle smiling at him.

‘Thanks for comin’ Merlin- know it was unexpected.’ She busied herself with taking a seat, pushing an empty mug in his direction. ‘No requests for tea- you take it an’ like it. I will,’ she acquiesced, ‘allow you to add cream and sugar if you desire- an’ don’t give me that tripe about takin’ tea black like your soul, I’d know you was lying.’

Merlin had rarely felt this off-kilter in a situation. The last time he’d been in this house he was acting on the requests of a ghost, and had left feeling like he’d drained an infected wound. And today was definitely not a predictable follow up to that interaction. He took the mug and poured out a healthy portion of tea, adding sugar but no cream before lifting it for a sip to the bemusement of Michelle. ‘Dare I ask the occasion?’

‘Ain’t no occasion, just figured you was like Harry and didn’t do shit outside your job without an Unwin forcin’ you. So, here’s an Unwin, forcing you out of your comfort zone.’

‘I’d like to believe tea is familiar territory for everyone, Mrs. Unwin.’ He hid his confusion behind the mug, eyes closed to further savour the warmth as it sank down his body.

‘It’s Michelle, you idiot, and it ain’t about the tea- that was just to get you inside;’ Michelle sat back in her chair, hands still on the table, ‘This is gonna become a regular thing, Merlin- you’re going to come to my house, we are going to chat, and I’m going to drag you into proper personhood if it’s the last thing I do. You spies are so for into your heads that you’re forgettin’ how to live proper, from what Eggsy’s told me. Not in so many words, but I can read between lines just fine, thanks.’

‘I hate to disagree with whatever Eggsy’s told you, now that he has begun telling you things-’

‘Oh he ain’t actually telling me shit; but between his and Harry’s blinders to what’s in front of ‘em and Roxy’s bein’ unable to make regular conversation with the boys there’s somethin’ wrong with you spy types.’

‘Dare I ask what you mean by that?’ Merlin didn’t dare follow a train of thought while confused. He’d end up like those late night Wikipedia binges and end up somewhere entirely unrelated.

‘You learn so much abou’ looking for the shit you can’t see that you’re blind to the obvious. You live in this world just like the rest of us, you’re supposedly protectin’ us from the shit we common types can’t handle, but you don’t let yourselves actually be a part of it. You’re here, but you… you lot don’t engage with the world as it is in the day-to-day, just at its worst, and that gets you stuck in a rut you can’t even see, yeah?

‘My Eggsy’s a man now, I didn’ see that ‘til he’d gone off and changed without me and came back to save me from my shitty choices, but he still goes to the pub with the boys from the estates. He hasn’ just shut himself up and waited for things to happen- even when he was mourning for Harry he was still out doing shit that wasn’ related to Kingsman. An’ trying to connect his new life with his old one withou’ forcing people to change- bringin’ Roxy to pub nights or invitin’ his mates to his and Harry’s place for a game night. He mighta gotten some new digs, but he didn’ let you lot turn him into one of you.’

‘Oh certainly not- the shoes alone cause enough talk, and we can’t get him to lose them unless it’s a matter of life and death.’ Merlin didn’t say that he’d personally ensured that he had the ability to defend himself, no matter how he was dressed, between those winged trainers having extra blades and his snapbacks with garottes in the seams Eggsy was never unarmed. He also didn’t mention how Eggsy’s refusal to bend to the whims of the elder generation had done nothing but endear himself to the support staff.

‘Yeah, well, can’ take the estates from the kid no matter how he’s dressed- and you posh types needed a good kick in the arse. The world’s changing, an’ trying to do the same shit to fix a new problem just don’t work. That’s just the way it is- an’ without fresh eyes you can’ see shit. So,’ Michelle lifted a hand and gestured regally to herself and the house around her, ‘here’s your dose of reality courtesy of Unwin. No expiration date, no catch, no choice- you’ll come here an’ get an outside view of somethin’ and you’re gonna like it.’

‘This is quite honestly the last thing I’d have expected after our last conversation.’

‘Yeah, well, I was gettin’ impatient waiting for you to show back up here- figured I’d have to make the opening move.’

‘What made you think I’d come back here at all?’

‘You ain’t the type of person to leave a job half done, Merlin, from what Eggsy’s said ‘bout you over the last year ‘n change. You delivered a message but you didn’t see any of the results of that message- and you’re the person who cares about results just as much as actions.’

‘Are you certain that Eggsy doesn’t tell you anything about his work?’

‘Sure as I am that he’s got no clue Hart’s in love with him.’

Merlin spat out his tea.

‘How are you so sure about that?’

‘If you’ve spent half as long as I have talkin’ with him about Eggsy, I don’t have to explain it. You know. He doesn’t- neither of ‘em seem to have any clue about the other, and they’re both idiots, and I’m about sick of waiting for them to figure it out.’

‘And you don’t have objections?’

‘The fuck place do I have for objections? Am I Eggsy? No. Am I Harry? No. Shit, I’m barely Egggsy’s mum- he practically raised himself, and I have to accept that he grew up withou’ me and is able to make his own choices. B’sides,’ Michelle shrugged a shoulder, ‘with the way you lot go through life, I figure they’re at about the same level- emotionally, at least.’ She tucked a hair behind her ear and lifted her mug to her lips. ‘You, on the other hand, don’t have got a lot of growing to do- just a lot of rememberin’.’

‘I’m not a child you have to guide along-’

‘You ain’t a kid at all, and I don’t know if you ever were- compared to the rest of ‘em, you’ve got a head on your shoulders. Your problem is, it’s facin’ the wrong way. You’re so focused on what could or has gone wrong that you don’ celebrate the good shit. So, today, we start changin’ that.’ Michelle stood from the table and made her way into the kitchen, voice muffled by the distance but still clear. She came back out a moment later with a bag of jelly babies and a twister board whose wheel had been repurposed- numbers instead of limbs and four emoticons instead of colours- a heart, a set of glasses, a beaker, and a question mark.

‘We’re gonna try this today, and if it don’t work it don’t work, but we’re gonna try. You’re gonna spin this, an’ then you’re gonna tell me however many good things that happened to you for each category. You got,’ she gestured to the heart, ‘your personal life,’ the beaker, ‘your hobbies,’ the glasses, ‘your work,’ the question mark, ‘and just general good shit. If you finish the category, you get a prize- and I got it on good authority you like these so don’ play around pretend otherwise.’

‘And if I can’t?’ He was intrigued, if incredibly confused, by Michelle as a person- but perhaps she had a point. There were not many moments free for celebrating a job well done, with so much of the world consistently in crisis. Even mourning was pushed aside to make room for more current problem solving, but Kingsman needed to change. Harry’d known it from before he’d proposed Lee as a candidate, he’d held fast to the need for change all through Chester’s tenure as Arthur and even now was pushing against the elder Agents for change. Perhaps he wasn’t as exempt from that collective as he’d thought.

‘If you can’t think up enough things, I’ve given Harry some nerf guns and post-its to make your life inconvenient. Won’t put anyone in danger, but he’s been encouraged to be as annoying as possible between us meetin’ if you can’t look on the bright side a bit.’

‘And that’s supposed to be encouraging?’ Harry was a shit as it was, having someone else agree with his assessments and make it easier for him to be so did not seem like a positive.

‘Ain’t you seen Life of Brian? Always look on the bright side of life, love- an’ if gettin’ barraged with foam bullets gets you to open your bloody eyes and see the flowers you’re walkin’ past I’m gonna fuckin’ get it done somehow. Get Roxy and Eggsy in on it as well- they don’t know about this now, mind, figured it’s personal like, but Harry’s been your friend longer’n Eggsy’s been alive so he can do what he likes.

‘Change starts at the top- especially with people like you who’re built on image and silver spoons. They won’ even think about doin’ something different until they can see it ain’t gonna do any harm; an’ they won’t start actin’ different till it’s made so normal that they’re the weird ones if they don’t change, too. You’re the heart of them, Merlin- you train ‘em and keep ‘em safe and you kept the lot of them in line after Valentine- when you change, they’ll give it a shot, I think.’

Michelle Unwin had never been the person one could call on to make decisions; she hadn’t ever been the one who knew what was right or wrong in a moment. But she could tell when somethin’ was stuck, she could see (or guess at) the kind of change that needed to happen, and she wasn’t the kind of woman to back down just cos something was tough- not when it came to other people.

She may have fucked up her own life, may’ve made a stranger of her eldest kid and a father out of a bastard of a man, but she was a new woman now- and she wanted to help. She knew she could be of help. She sat across from the imposing Scotsman, who was staring at the board with the same look Daisy got when she was unsure of something, waiting for something to change. She couldn’t have told you how long they sat there, her watching him and him trying to stare his way through a bit of glossed up cardboard, one of each of their hands curled about a cooling mug of tea.

Merlin reached forward, and spun the arrow.

#dagonet writes #Kingsman #Echoes #kingsman fic

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yvaquietdays · 6 years

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idealising the past and dreaming about the future

Last week, after I made the blog public, I received some pretty beautiful messages. Most of them were from folks who had been in the exact same position as me, whether living with depression or anxiety, or simply finding it tough battling through life’s disappointments. It was incredibly comforting knowing what I believed when I wrote that last post was so resonant; we’re all going through the same bullshit.

But a friend in particular, his name is Mat. He commented publicly on my post with some words that got me thinking. Imma share this here:

If I was arrested for any crime at all it would be for idealising my past self. That and eating too many biscuits. Who I was, who I thought I was. I laughed more, I cared less, I subscribed to nobody else’s version of me. But then I got depressed and worried all the time, and I lost that part of myself. The happy-go-lucky, ball of energy, motivated, determined young woman, gone. As slow and as unnervingly noticeable as a fart. Much in the way that Mat reminisces over his “extroverted, confident ‘me’“, I reminisce heavily upon the teenage me, the one who had stars in her eyes and never wavered in her confidence of her abilities.

Except, when I really think about it, when I’m honest with myself, and I face my self in the mirror, I know that isn’t true.

All that I’ve lost, really, are my rose tinted glasses.

I grew up.

I was never motivated, I was never determined. I was lucky. I can’t reminisce about the person I was because I know more about myself now than I did before, and I think the hardest part of climbing out of the pit of your mental un-health is accepting that life goes forwards, not backwards. I can’t unlearn all the things I’ve learnt since I noticed three years ago that I wasn’t happy. The truth is, I was unhappy before that. I’ve been fighting off that frequency sadness for as long as I can remember.

So I can’t go back and rewind the clock, because all I have is now and I don’t want to be that sad girl anymore. I’ve been thinking a lot about cycles, the 7-year-life cycle in particular. Wait, though- Before you flick back to whatever you were doing before you decided to read my blog, bear with me. Aside from whatever spiritual or philosophical connotations the idea might have, let’s look at it logically for a second. The first seven years of our life we spend smelling and touching and feeling out the world around us. Any mental learning is done almost subconsciously, depending on how our world treated us. We’re well on our way to becoming a real, pubescent adult when the second cycle rolls around, by which point we’re discovering our sexuality, relationships, viewpoints and intellect. This is such a huge exploratory phase for some. Then the third arrives, and we’re beginning to find out what the world is like without our parents driving the train. We’re figuring out where we place in the grand scheme of things, and wondering how you might change, politically, environmentally, socially. And then come our twenties.

Jesus Fuck.

WHAT HAPPENED?!

I think it is no coincidence that a lot of people suffer mental illness for the first time in this particular age bracket. I envy those who don’t. They tend to be some of the most driven, strongest people I know. But my friends used to call it “the mid-twenties fear.” Out of nowhere, we’re mentally and physically culpable for all our own decisions and mistakes, and all the ideas we had for life in those first three cycles have become somewhat buried under a pile of work deadlines, rent days and bills to pay. We don’t own your own home yet, we aren’t married, we have no kids. We aren’t in the perfect job yet, we haven’t even begun the successes that were supposed to come to us after we put in so much work at our GCSE’s, A-Levels, degrees!

We’re the guy cleaning our toilets now, we’re the ones buying the food. School didn’t prepare us (not in the UK at least) for how to deal with every day responsibilities; how to pay taxes, how to arrange loans, how to mentally cope with the resounding disappointment we feel at how our lives panned out in contrast to the grand ideals we had when we were in our third cycle.

Oof. I know. Heavy man.

(I have a big problem with how out-dated our education system is; instead of being career-driven, it is goal-driven. Degrees don’t work for everyone and they evidently do not provide for a stable economy. More apprenticeships, less pressure on exams (not everyone is good at those) and more practical applications, pls & thnx)

But here’s what I’ve realised. Life is a cycle. It’s not meant to go backwards, it’s supposed to continue on its round, picking up what we’ve learned and adapting itself as it goes. Why focus on what we haven’t got when we should focus on what we do have? And if something is ever spiralling, ever changing and evolving, how can we go back to the last cycle? Should we jam an iron rod in the spokes, forcing the wheel to brake suddenly and collapse under the pressure? Because that is what would happen. That is what happened to me.

I knew at the age of 18 my life wasn’t heading in the right direction, when I stared out of my university accommodation window at York Minster in the distance, listening to Stop This Train by John Meyer. The night was dark, and I sat curled on my redundant desk chair, wondering in a pale blue light of sadness, even then. Eventually I made the change, dropping out of further education and pursuing my joy, my music. But it did not alleviate the sadness. I continued on, all the while so scared of living life on my own, so scared of growing up. I lived in fear for years of never achieving my goals because I could not bear to be alone doing it. Isolation was my motivation and fear my hinderance.

I spent years dreaming and idealising this vision of the future where I was always winning, where I was singing and performing and recording and I was writing with everyone and everyone wanted to write with me, and everything was just going to work out (claps between words required). It was easier living in this fantasy life I wanted to build, but the escape was taking me further away from reality. Much like that incredible Pixar film, Inside Out, fear and sadness was in control of my actual life.

Things were going well for a while in that frame of mind, but then they didn’t.

When all those things I’d dreamt (I stress that I never visualised them, not in a positive way- I dreamed them- the difference is as vast as an ocean) didn’t happen, I kept harking on to that past self, wondering where it all went wrong, trying to get back that ambition, the endless streams of excitement, the riveting pangs of desire. It was all a lie I told myself. Because really, all I had in the pit of my stomach was dull and and grey; it was nothing, and I could feel myself hiding in that pit, far, far away from where I used to be. All of what I told myself was a lie, and I was starting to realise the truth of it.

I think that amidst all of it, life was telling me (whatever it was; nature, God, Buddha’s mates,) I ought not to hyper-admire my old self. Because in trying to become my past self, I was ignoring what I could become in the future. All of the little lies I told myself started to evolve on their own like that black icky shit from Prometheus (don’t watch it- it’s disappointing, just like your life), to the point that I forgot what I had done to protect myself; when all of those things I had lied with were stripped from me, I was naked and bare, and I had no idea of how I was going to move through the murk of it all. My self esteem was so low that the idea of performing made me anxious, writing made me cry, I sat in silence at the piano with a choke in my throat and my guitar lay in its case gathering dust.

But I was naked for a reason. I had to accept that I was relying heavily upon this idea of my self, not upon what I was. I was constantly seeking others’ approval, my only source of validation was what I thought others thought of me.

It has been empowering to know that the answer has been in me all along. I cannot blame others for how I view myself.

Life is a cycle. I am where I am supposed to be now. It’s not perfect, I’m still working on me and creating my life with my own hands, not someone else’s. I’m not quite there yet, but I’m trying.

But maybe this is my best self, because I’m so much more aware and emotionally awake. Maybe I’m the best I can be because I recognised my laziness and arrogance when I needed to, and in stripping these things away from my ego I am looking forward to being a better person, not the young complacent girl I was. And as a woman, cycles rule our lives. From the second cycle to the latter, our emotions and physiology is run by a monthly turn of events. Part of the reason I came off the pill was so that I could feel and trust this more purely. I was neglecting my basic instincts and self and I couldn’t have jacked up hormones hiding it away from me.

So everything comes and goes. The old girl goes and the new woman arrives. We have a chance to change every time. All aspects of life in this world run in a cycle. Water, fire, earth. It all moves and works in a cycle. Ice ages, the rising of dough into a beautiful donut, the melting of butter atop a mountain of cheese and jacket potato. Life and death. All the important stuff.

So I let the death of my old self instigate the birth of a better me. And one day I might shed this skin too and look forward to the next husk I inhabit.

What I’m learning is that nostalgia can be good, if you’re with your mates and remembering that time you threw up down the side of George Ezra’s tour van (true story).

But if we start becoming nostalgic about our selves, thinking of our current self in a negative way, dousing it in low light and bad reflective gear, and instead highlighting that past self with the glory light of hindsight, we can’t, and I believe, we won’t move forward.

We have to accept ourselves as we are now, and then build whatever we can upon the foundations that we create every second we’re alive. Because all we have are our own decisions, that ultimately we are in control of. How we respond, how we act, what we say; at the end of the day, that’s who we are. What you did today, that’s who you are, good or bad. No-one is perfect and life is a cycle. We always have tomorrow to try again.

We don’t have yesterday, so

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scoutshonor56 · 5 years

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The Uninvited Guest

Have you ever had an uninvited guest? You know, the one who promises to help around the house, get along with the wife and kids, stay in the background, kick in some money for food and bills, just until he finds a job and moves out in a timely fashion…

…and then does none of the above? Now, 8 months later, the wife is one more “incident” away from filing for divorce, your kids are hardly ever home, and the funds are getting so lean you’re pulling extra hours at work to compensate (and avoid homelife) and even brown-bagging it for lunch. I know some countries that probably feel that way - it certainly reminds me of our relationship with the Middle East.

As I watched American troops withdrawing from Syria last week, being pelted with rocks and potatoes, angry mobs of Kurds shaking their fists and holding up signs, I had nothing but shame for my country; shame and anger. Yup, shocking even those in his own party and members of his cabinet advisors, our reality-challenged Moron in Chief announced that he was bailing on strategic ally, the Ukraine, in his fairy tale effort to spin his own story and “Bring our troops home!”

Oh BOY, that phrase has such a positive ring to it! It smells of mission accomplished, implying some sort of victory! Tears and hugs, excited dogs, welcome home parties, and a return to mom’s Sunday beef stew and apple pie with the family!

Whooo-WEE did that one push the bullshit meter needle into the red; all we’re doing is moving the tokens around the board, and not very far at that. They are already being re-deployed two steps over, primarily back to Iraq. This occupation - let’s call it what it is - has become a marathon game of insanity and blood, where there is no end and everybody loses. It’s an open scrum played on a dangerous field of rock and sand with no rules, no boundaries, and goal posts that were torn down long ago - just make shit up as you go along.

I know it’s been a long time, so it’s understandably easy to forget, but the invasion of Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, and soon expanded into Iraq on March 19, 2003. Meaning in two short years, we will have reached the twenty-year mark, the longest war by far in America’s relatively short history. There are teenagers today who have known nothing but this occupational war. It has literally become part of our national fabric, background static in our everyday lives; and like an ever-present mild tinnitus ring in your ear, you soon learn to live with it, tune it out. Put a WE SUPPORT OUR TROOPS bumper sticker on your car and carry on with your day, feeling secure that you’ve done your part.

It’s filler for the media when they run short of something more “interesting” to prattle on about, something more eye-grabbing! This war is sooo old news – it has no cute, fuzzy animals doing funny things, not even any chesty cleavage for God’s sake! And where are the celebrities, the Hollywood scandals!? Oh never mind, switch the channel to “America’s Got Talent”, or “Dancing With the Stars”, or “The Voice”…

Again I ask myself, why is it that America, in all it’s nationalistic hubris and arrogance, simply can’t imagine the horror and hatred generated by military occupation of one’s own country? What if it was us that had M2 Bradley fighting vehicles and Humvees patrolling our streets, troops banging down our doors, searching our homes, families rounded up in our streets and being harshly interrogated in a language we don’t even understand. The ever-present “accidental” shootings and beatings, tempers flaring, hospitals, social events, and schools bombed, all justified with the flippant term “collateral damage” - OOPS!

Proud cities laid in ruin, jobs lost, and forced mass migrations pushing you here, there, and then back again as the bloody conflict moves from place to place, country to country.

And I might add this is something we’ve had a lot of practice at over the last century; this is far from the first time we have flexed our misguided muscle in a world that we continue to see through our myopic American eyes. “Surely everyone shares and envies our values and culture, right?” Granted, there may have been a time not long ago when this was true, and the premise still holds some validity today, but no ride lasts forever, and this is a new century with a new game that is already seeing a lot of new players. It’s time this country and its people came to grips with the reality that as of 2019, we comprise 4.27% of the world’s global population.

Many might say, “Well yes, but we’re liberators, not aggressors…”

To which I would say, let’s hold off on the flag waving until such results are achieved – until then, and after almost 20 years, the distinction to me appears rather blurry. Or more to the point, let that call be made by the hapless bystanders and victims caught in the middle; let’s ask them if all the sorrow and rage is/was worth it. Then let’s be honest and open with the American people and tally up our cost, and then put it on the scales of justification:

According to a study at the Watson Institute at Brown University, the combined cost of this war in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq so far is just shy of, and soon approaching, 6 trillion dollars; that’s trillion.

According to this same study, there have been an approximate total of 500,000 people killed, and that’s not even including another half million deaths attributed to Syria, a bloody skirmish we joined in 2014. How much of that can be directly attributed to our involvement? Certainly debatable I grant you, but you can cut those numbers in half and they still represent a staggering figure.

According to Military.com a record total of 321 active duty members of the American military took their own lives just last year - that’s almost an average of one a day. I’m no psychologist, and I’m sure there are a myriad of complex reasons, but quite frankly I don’t find it that difficult to understand the feeling of hopelessness and absurdity as you contemplate a life that you used to know fading from your day to day reality. Home? Home will never be the same for you, especially if you are one of the maimed and scarred…

Maybe I’m being idealistic or naïve, or reading too much “fake news”, or simply not clear on how we keep score in such endeavors, but I’m not seeing much of anything on the plus column here yet…

Meanwhile, let’s imagine a parallel universe where America embraces a much more effective and sane method to “win the hearts and minds” of countries in turmoil, who are tipping on the brink of political and social chaos. What if we took a tiny chunk of those trillions of dollars, let’s say 5 or 10 billion, and built schools to educate, libraries, and hospitals. Sent over professional and knowledgeable advisors instead of soldiers to help with a country’s medical needs, sustainable farming techniques, and developing new industries to generate a stable economy. How do you think the rest of the world would judge us then? How many nations would not only become willing allies, but maybe even emulate this humanitarian effort that recognizes we are all people sharing the same planet.

Now for the bonus feature that enhances life here at home – we could utilize a couple of those trillions of dollars to rebuilt and modernize our roads and bridges, our water management systems, airports, and mass transit infrastructure. I can’t tell you how many documentaries I’ve watched where American engineers grade all of these areas as antiquated and sorely in need of repair or replacement. Did you know nearly 85% of our bridges were built before 1970? Major airports around the world put ours to shame. As our climate rapidly changes, flood management has now become a major concern here in America. We could greatly expand and improve renewable energy, making it more cost efficient and readily available.

Improve our schools and pay our teachers a competitive wage. Why would any country not treat the education of its citizenry as a top priority? Schools are the very soil in which we carefully nurture the human seeds of a globally successful and competitive society, critical today more than ever. According to an international study done by the Pew Research Center in 2015, our educational system rates middle of the pack, or worse – how do you think that bodes for our future in a rapidly changing and developing world?

And we would still have plenty left over to maintain a robust Defense Dept.

Instead, we continue to feed an insatiable Defense budget. A gluttonous monster that holds sway over our politicians and lobbyists. Last year alone we spent more than the next seven countries combined, and yes, that includes China and Russia. Our military budget for 2020? $738 billion, and it goes up every year.

While we now have a record breaking deficit of over 1 trillion dollars, military spending eats over half of our discretionary budget annually. Why do we continue this madness of “might makes right”? Pursuing peace through aggression and intimidation, carrying the biggest club? According to The Wall St. Journal, America has more than 400 military bases around the world, located on every continent but Antarctica. As of this year we have an inventory of over 6,000 nuclear warheads – now that’s what a call a redundant backup…

This is exactly the madness that retired five-star general and former president Dwight Eisenhower warned about in his farewell speech at the White House on Jan. 17, 1961. He called it “the military-industrial complex”, referring to the growing and dangerous union of our defense contractors and the armed forces.

His successor to the highest office in the land, John F. Kennedy, once said:

"And we must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent or omniscient - that we are only six percent of the world's population - that we cannot impose our will upon the other ninety-four percent of mankind - that we cannot right every wrong or reverse each adversity - and that therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world problem."

Just maybe it’s time to try a little harder at getting along; to lead by example, instead of might. America first? Great, I’m all for it - let’s start in our own backyard, because it’s a mess.

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illegiblewords · 7 years

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Right now I am honestly tired as heck just out of work but I think I am figuring out a writing thing so gonna type that here.

I’m basically in the kind of :I position rn where besides on and offline responsibilities and social stuff I have:

1) A novel I am supposed to be working on through July, which is properly outlined and I feel pretty good about.

2) A fun D&D campaign that I’m :> over.

3) A new idea that hit me in the head like a sack of bricks like a day or two ago.

#3, literally it’s the second time in my life that kind of situation has happened. I don’t normally have ideas where the concept just sort of gets vomited out in a weird detailed state. But after a late af night at work apparently that was what had to happen and I ended up scribbling notes for that for like five hours into some stupid time at night/morning.

Honestly, prob some part of me had been low key preparing for that to happen. I’ve been toying with the idea of doing a thing involving multiple fantasy races (main novel isn’t about that) and then when I hit D&D that basically unclogged a bunch of concepts that had previously been mushing together and they sort of exploded out in a much more articulate way than originally planned. I can see pieces of what I’d been vaguely considering before floating around.

And now I have to deal with it. :[

One of the parts I’ve been very D: about though is cast.

Let me tell you dudes, I actually talked to a dear friend who is a pro editor about writing and she gave me some advice I try to keep in mind. That advice was to not make such ungodly huge casts.

This isn’t because I can’t make solid characters with huge casts or stories can’t be told with huge casts. It’s because I’m a goddamn crazy person and whenever I try to set up a story I end up doing horrifyingly detailed levels of worldbuilding and literally with notes of like eight generations of personal ancestry and all the social circles of every single character and then when you have casts of like 60 people that goes into the sphere of hundreds of pages of OUTLINING and it’s hard to get started. Not even fucking exaggerating. My main novel I basically have two points of view (so I’d list main cast is like two people) and less than ten significant cast members because I know I’m like this and I deliberately looked at myself in the mirror and was like NO URBAN YOU NEED TO STOP.

This novel, the original main cast size I had in mind was going to be like nine. As in, the people traveling together having an adventure was going to be be nine. I would still have had to do all the “npc” types and make backstories and motives for their asses.

I realized at some point this was excessive and did that whole look-yourself-in-the-mirror thing and went DO YOU REALLY NEED A MAIN CAST OF NINE URBAN THAT SEEMS PRETTY EXCESSIVE, and so then proceeded to look at my cast and be like “DEFEND WHY THIS PERSON NEEDS TO EXIST AND IF YOU CANNOT THEN FUCK THEM”.

Basically, self-amputation is an important part of writing my friends. It really is.

So step one, there were a series of stern conversations with myself that amounted to “DO YOU REALLY NEED A SUBTERRANEAN HALF-ELF BARD URBAN?” “Well I mean I don’t know it might raise neat questions and I have so many guys in the cast and I’d like to balance things–” “DO YOU REALLY NEED A SUBTERRANEAN HALF-ELF BARD URBAN?” “… No, not really…” “SAY HASTA LA VISTA BABY” Then rinse and repeat with a bunch of other characters.

For the record, I try to do this same process when I go shopping too. It is not always successful but I do use it. In this case I was fortunate and I succeeded in whittling the main cast down to six members, which is still big but not obscenely big.

When I was younger, I used to use tv tropes as a guide to try and help myself figure things out not going to lie. As an older and more experienced writer lady I know that tv tropes does a lot of focusing on the superficial bits of writing but not so much the reasons for those superficial bits that actually let you do important structural work. Still, I did have a look back at cast calculus to see what those were in case it gave me an idea of how to approach the issue of making dynamics and fleshing out characters and doing the pacing with a situation like this.

The answer wasn’t there. But it did help me get my fucking head together, so credit where it is due.

TV tropes talks about five man band a lot, which is basically a structure of leader, person to direct foil the leader, someone intellectual in the group, someone physical in the group, and mediator of the group. It’s not actually said that nicely, they have some admin there being a royal turd focusing on “wah the mediator has to be a gurl” instead of character dynamics. Annoying and useless for storytellers but w/e. They also talk about how sometimes you get a sixth person tacked on and usually that person is an edgelord of some kind who reforms.

Superficial stuff, not that useful. But some person made a note that made me stop and just explained the whole goddamn thing for me clearly.

The sixth person usually acts as a second foil to the leader.

Huh.

So basically, shit’s like this. I’m pretty sure I heard at some point that humans are only really able of fully comprehending numbers up to 3 at a time. It’s not that you don’t know there are bigger numbers. But like picture a bunch of dots or something, they usually break into 1′s, 2′s, or 3′s. If you imagine four it’s like 2+2 or 1+3. If you imagine five it’s like 2+3 or 1+2+2 or something. Grain of salt me on this I am not a mathematician or a scientist, but I do remember hearing this is a thing.

If you look at the way cast calculus tries to break shit down on the tv tropes website, they follow this more or less. Duos you have person A and person B contrasting their qualities, they end up bouncing off each other and creating a balance. Trios you have person A and person B with that structure but then person C is also there and is a kind of mediator role. Id (impulsive and a bit selfish)/ego (aware of reality)/superego (morality or intellect) with ego as mediator if you wanna go old psych. With groups of five, the setup is leader/right hand (contrast), then mind/body (another form of contrast, doesn’t strictly need to be that probably but it is one), then mediator.

2+2+1, or you can attach the mediator to either group of two and have 3+2.

Huuuuuuh.

So six, though. What the fuck are you supposed to do with six?

3+3 my dudes, and 2+2+2. AND, if you aren’t gonna be lazy and shallow and just blindly mimic what people have done before without understanding it (disclaimer: I have in fact been lazy and shallow and blindly mimicked what people have done before without understanding it many, many times) you gotta be able to switch the party members in each subdivision and explain where they stand with the dynamic so you don’t have any redundant bits or hiccups and all the relationships read distinct.

So basically:

Character A

Character B

Character C

Character D

Character E

Character F

You gotta be able to explain:

ABC, DEF, AB, CD, EF first. Then ABD, CEF, AD, BE, CF, and so on.

Reasons larger casts get harder, you have more shit you have to figure out with fucking math. Cut corners at this and the risk of you having two characters who are basically the same person and have a boring nonsense dynamic you don’t know what to say about goes up.

But Urban (you say as my levels of insane analytical bullshit continue to climb), haven’t people figured this shit already??? A-Archetypes happened yeah, so theoretically some older and more mathematically/instinctively gifted storytellers in the past figured some shit out. Wasn’t there a thing about the sixth person being some kind of douchecanoe edgelord? Why not just go with that and pray it sticks?

See I figured that trick out my dudes. I figured it right out. The douchecanoe is a trick. Secretly, that douchecanoe has a hole and that hole is flooded with more math.

Why do you need a douchecanoe? Well, we said earlier–usually they show up and turn out to be a second foil to the leader. So you got leader, foil A, foil B. One is gonna be mediator (probably the leader) and then each of the others will be a pole of some kind. Id, ego, superego is one way of putting it but so is idk idealist, realist, cynic. You can go a lot of routes with this. For mine I have ends justify the means, ends never justify means, and maybe both sometimes depending on the situation. It’s all foiling. And depending on who you have in which position you will have greater or lesser levels of contrast or parallel going on. I could have ABC and DEF be id, ego, superego respectively but then I try ABD and in that setup D is ego/mediator compared to A and B or something.

Basically, you have a team who is mostly pretty heroic overall, the person jumping in being either a moral extremist in some ways or being extra impulsive about what they want is a way to increase the range of morality on the whole and offer more foiling opportunities. I'd like to say though that isn't the only way to do it. If you have an asshole teammate in a group of five and then send in a sixth person, that sixth person could stand out for being really decent too. It's basically about generating a big moral contrast, especially between the leader and their direct foil.

But what about shipping? Opposites attract is one thing but isn’t birds of a feather flock together also a thing? And isn't shipping is just another form of character dynamic? What the hell does that do to all this horrible math? The thing is, opposites attract and birds of a feather flock together always, by nature, have to be trends. Not absolutes. Otherwise you get selfcest or two people with nothing to bond or relate over at all. Practically aliens. Any contrast you create between characters must also parallel in some other way and vice versatile. And ye both still work. It's good general policy to always have some level of foiling AND some level of paralleling between each pair of cast members that is distinct.

Also, as a bonus--why do people think casts of four are tricky? Basically when you are doing groups of four every single character has to be equally foiled and paralleled by every other character in some way. The balance of similarity and difference is real precise and can be a little tricky to wing.

But yeah, seven and higher cast numbers scare the hell out of me especially since they don't break evenly into subgroups within human comprehension limits. I think it's still doable but Jesus.

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eewilliamsthings · 8 years

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Part Three

Life goes on

About six month later, mum has settled into the home, there was a blip with more illness and an undiagnosed disease, a companion to another disease. More hospitalisations, serious stuff we were dealing with.

Then there was a big blip culminating in a diagnosis of Uterine Cancer, which came out of the blue, about three weeks before I was to leave my job, my career for a sabbatical, as some said, or unemployment as others did.

So now, on a very wet and wintery July day in Sydney, I am sitting in the hospital coffee shop at 12.28pm, I wait and type whilst mum undergoes a bilateral hysterectomy under the stewardship of a very sweet and learned Gyno-Oncologist. With all her sweetness and grace, mum was up and waiting at 6am for my brother to drive her to the hospital where I waited, anxious and wishing and hoping that this would be the last. When we found out she was cancerous, she looked at me and said, why do things always happen to me? Responding, I said, because you can handle it. She smiled and said yes, yes I can. And that is how we proceeded. Yes, we can handle.

But before all this, and after the little blip, she was settling and mellowed into the routine of the nursing home albeit reluctantly on those days when she refused to shower, telling who ever was on duty, I will shower when I feel like it. She takes her pills, which on last count tallied around 15 a day, ate her food, drank copious cups of black tea and befriended a man called Peter who would sit next to her on the sofa and on occasion they held hands. He has a wife, who lives on the outside and he knows that he has a wife, but has found a kindred sprit in mum, as they share a similar humour and still have enough sense to chat and laugh about the day.

Her home, with all the visitors, as my sister in law describes it, is lovely. Finding the right one was not lovely. Of all the decisions that had to be made this was the hardest. Basically, the 12 year old social worker at the hospital gave me a book that listed all the nursing homes in NSW. It was rather weighty. She did not help, or made recommendations. She could not, as she had no life experience to draw upon to help me. So I took charge, decided it needed to be half way between my brothers work (he works shifts so it would be easier) and me, and I had to choose the right place.

I visited a couple that I wouldn't put a dog in. Then I found it. It was small, clean, the buildings were about 5 years old, but had been established for over 30 years. The Director of Nursing was interested in mum and that was it, their first thought was for the people. Paperwork completed, mum moved with the least amount of tears.

The staff are genuine and caring and represent of the colours of the world, along with the colours of the rainbow. There is the transgender who arrived late for work one afternoon dressed in a flowing long dress, silver high heels with a sequinned cardigan draped over her shoulders, running through the front door towards the bundy clock, hoping not to be late for work and nobody batting an eyelid, is the place for mum. Colourful, real and accepting.

Mum shares a room with another woman who is wheelchair bound. Bicycles or prams as mum calls them. Her words continue to jumble. Look at all the bicycles in this room. Aunty Liz or mum, as my mum sometimes calls her, (again the jumbling of worlds and people) makes no sense but she loves mum, and mum loves her. They hold hands and sit with each other watching movies, not remembering the plot but appreciating the colour and movement on the screen. Aunty Liz is Eastern European and most of the time speaks her own language, and even though she can speak fluent English and mum can't understand a word of what she says, mum bats her eyelids and says yes, that is right.

On the evening before mum's surgery Aunty Liz looked up from her bed and said to mum, "don't worry I will look after you." I stopped in my tracks, and thought it can't get any more fucking profound than that.

Movies are a big part of the entertainment circuit. The massive Kogan TV seems to be on 24/7, with DVD's of Andre Rieu on high rotation. They love him and having sat through most of them, I must say he is pretty bloody good. They sing along and dance and conduct their way through the concerts, and mum who had learnt classical violin sits fingering notes, whether they are actual notes, I have no clue. I was caught off guard one day when I arrived to see mum with another lady bent over her four wheel drive (walker) dancing to the blue danube. Spectacular.

Some months later this same woman slapped me in the face so hard that it stung for hours. I had transgressed, no one knows why, only dancing queen knew, and this is the reality of dementia. I think of them living never ending lives, locked in their own thoughts and memories, recalling the minutest of detail from 50, 60 years ago, but yet not remembering if they had eaten lunch.

These grandmothers and grandfathers having lived full and eventful lives now living and sharing quite and peaceful lives. These little Benjamin Buttons live their little lives with great love, humanity and civility, these 63 souls could teach the world how diversity works.

Amongst in this little community is Meow Meow, who meows like a cat so purely and clearly, that one day Peter and I looked at one another and said in unison to each other, "did you hear a cat?" No one know whys she does it, but she does. In a different environment she would be considered a performance artist. She scolded me once for laughing too much, seconds later as I moved so not to annoy her, she thanked me for visiting.

Hello Hello, is a favourite. He was a clinical staff specialist at a major teaching hospital and sits in his easy chair for most of the day. Between Hello, Hello is a piano and on the other side of the piano is John who sits in another easy chair, reading the paper. Towards the end of each day Hello Hello, will repeats out loud, "hello, hello. hello", "shut up, shut up, shut up" says John. It is hilarious the old guys from the muppets living here, in Strathfield.

Another resident, Major Silver hair. An elegant woman in her mid 90s who was code breaker for the Army during the second world war. Her intellect is still evident and although obviously suffering from memory loss, she still has her wits about her. She also loves conducting Andre in his concerts, and is convinced that the raised garden bed where camellias grow is going to be turned into a swimming pool. Not a big one, but one just the same. She told me this one afternoon, she came up and greeted me with her usual hello darling and asked if I had children. Replying in the negative she continued explaining that you know there are little kiddies that visit here, interjecting I said well we could throw them in. She laughed and wandered off with her four wheel drive.

There is much humour in this little community of people who have been thrown together for no other reason or circumstance than age or illness. The majority of the staff are brilliant. They are funny, caring and determined to make the facility friendly, warm and welcoming.

There are some who I would like to throw against the wall with my forearm against their throat and shout, do your job you lazy arse. But like all workplaces there are slackers and time wasters and those who really should look for a different calling. They know I have sized them up, there exists an unwritten detente between us. They don't fuck with mum and I will not fuck with them.

There is also death. At least half a dozen residents have died since mum has been there. The most sad was Peter, who very suddenly one Tuesday night passed away. We had talked a little after dinner. I always asked how are you, and he would respond oh not too bad for a little old man. He said his goodnights and tottered off to his room. A little later as I was leaving, he walked out of his room at the end of long corridor and walked into the bathroom, he stopped turned and waved to me, I waved back and left. On my next visit I learned that he had died. Very suddenly of heart failure. It was heartbreaking, all us visitors talked about it, saying how lovely and sweet he was. All I could think of was god bless you Peter, you gentle gentleman who had never flown in a plane.

Part Four

Oh, and how are you doing?

So how are you doing? Is what I get asked the most. I smile and say OK. And, continue with my day. Bullshit I'm OK. But, to those who are not familiar, OK is the standard response.

It has been three months since the surgery and three months since I walked away from work. Having been with the organisation for 20 years, with the last ten years doing the job that I could not have dreamed of it was so beautifully challenging, rewarding and perfect. But, it had changed, the restructuring had taken its toll on my sensibilities, I had no mental stamina left, I was devoid of self motivation and the personal politics of some of my peers and colleagues left me tainted. My job, my delicious job, had withered into something that was unrecognisable, outsourced and over engineered by the consultants. It was becoming a standard that I was not willing to walk by anymore.

I hated it, even the physical office, I hated it with its views of Sydney Harbour, meetings rooms named after Sydney suburbs and the gigantic corporate Nespresso machine, I hated it all, but kept coming in each day. I didn't hate my colleagues they were possibly the smartest and kindest group of people I had ever worked with. But, I am smart and had my exit plan, a few of us did. And, after what seemed like a year in purgatory a very nice redundancy package appeared, I pounced.

There is much that I have not written, how closing up mums house and sorting through her life. How the plastic leprechaun that I gave her after a trip to Ireland 20 years ago, made me weep more when I put in the the box for Vinnies, than giving my grandmothers bed away. A bed which I had inherited and slept in from the age of 18 to 43, until I returned it to mums spare room and slept on a few months ago. Nor have I written about how the cancer was identified. These events filled me with more fear than this whole past year. And, you know, some things can go unsaid. Put the baggage down and walk away. You know it is there but you don't have to stand by it, you can walk on.

The first two months were filled with surgery, medical appointments and all the in-betweens that come with cancer, old age and redundancy. I am still not working and my days are organised into segments, but there are days when I do nothing except watch daytime television and lay around. I breakfast, read the papers online, drink coffee, visit museums and see plays, take walks, go to the movies, (37 to be exact in a 12 month period) coffee with friends, visit mum three times a week, Piliates twice a week and some times comedy gigs, consume Facebook, and live, I live and still cry and declare numerous times a week that I must get a job. I obsess and I feel friends worry I take note when they advise that you can't stop your life because of your mum.

I am decompressing, adjusting, being mindful or mindless depending on the day, and think, oh how I think and what I think. I do all this whist feeling I have a hand wrapped around my solar plexus. the clench is slight, but it is there all the time. Sometimes, I don't feel it but I always recognise it. It is there 24/7. get anxious about the slightest of things, I dither and wander from room to room, cry doing the washing up, when I see film of baby koalas in wicker baskets on Facebook.

So, that is it, the weight of loss is a dire thing, and yes, I work very hard not let it consume or rule me, as no one likes being told what to do…

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